“There are legitimate, even powerful arguments, to be made against … [an] administration’s foreign policy. But those arguments are complicated, hard to explain, and, in the end, not all that sensational.”

– Tucker Carlson

Or maybe the problem goes even deeper:

“Bringing democratic control to the conduct of foreign policy requires a struggle merely to force the issue onto the public agenda.”

– Eric Alterman

What too many people think:

“Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government does it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy.”

– P. J. O’Rourke

What Public Diplomacy folks like to think:

“The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.”

– Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The neoconservative view (and Kennedy definitely was one):

“Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.”

– John F. Kennedy

And, would that Henry Kissinger had paid more attention to his own words:

“No foreign policy – no matter how ingenious – has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.”

– Henry A. Kissinger

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About Mary Jeffers

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the State Department or the U.S. Government. The author is a State Department officer specializing in public diplomacy, currently detailed to the IPDGC to teach and work on various Institute projects.